Gray days
by ColdCypher
Summary: It seems someone other than Ranma has to endure the pain of killing Saffron... Where's Ranma and how will our hero cope with being a killer? SI AU


The gray clouds moved slowly across the sky. The rain had only stopped a few moments before and the courtyard outside the education building was still wet with heaven's tears… Yeah… heaven's tears that would be a perfect description. It also fit my mood perfectly.  
  
I was sitting outside one of the classrooms waiting for the people to show up. I was about thirty minutes early but that suited me just fine… it gave me time to think. I pressed the play button on my mp3 player and sighed as my favorite song started playing, 'Before I'm dead.' I looked down at the courtyard, watching the various types of people walk by. Some of them looked downright boring and nerdy while others looked like something out of a drug documentary.   
  
The bricks of the courtyard sent me a wet reflection of the white sky that was lit from behind by the already high sun. The autumn leaves decorated the floor as well and all around the courtyard stood bare trees raking the sky with their sharp claws.  
  
The whole day seemed to glow with some sort of dull grayish color…and that only made me feel worse. Usually I'd find some depressing Ranma fanfic and read it…I don't know why but it always gave me a vague sense of nostalgia and it made me feel like I wasn't alone.  
  
I felt useless in my current state… a dreamer that couldn't even take care of his own friends…I mean look at my best friend, Iori. I could see that there was something wrong with her but she still refused to breath a word towards me. All I really wanted was to let her know that I was there for her when she needed me but she still stubbornly refused to open up to me…somewhere in the back of my mind I though that maybe it was something that happened to her in her past but I dismissed the idea. I knew some of the people she grew up with she her past was no secret to me.  
  
Of course her minds still escaped my awareness. I met her about three years ago when I was mulling in one of my classic bouts of depression. She brightened my day with a smile and a hello. She dragged me off to meet some of her friends and she talked to me. I don't quite know what it was but something about her made me smile… Of course when she wasn't near me I faded back to my old self… sometimes I think I just smiled to make her stop bugging me about looking at the world from a positive angle.   
  
I'm just a normal brown haired teenage boy who hates the human race. Of course this didn't stop her from trying to make me think positive… if it were anyone else I would probably have killed them by now but she….  
  
I was dragged out of my reverie by a sudden punch to my shoulder. "Hey Jake.", came the guys voice. I took off my headphones and looked up, "Yo, Darren.", I said, grabbing his hand in greeting and then turned back to look out the window…he wasn't really someone I socialized with…he's more of an acquaintance. Since we mostly go to same classes it was convenient to join him for most group projects since I could get a hold of him any time during the day. Besides… he had other friends to pay attention to and his hyper active annoying girlfriend too.   
  
He plopped himself down on the seat next to me. "Iori here yet?" "No. She's never here until the last second. It's a wonder she's always on time for class." "Yeah….So? What you been doing this weekend?" "I went on a hiking trip with my dad.", I grumbled, rubbing my sore calves and adjusting my shoes to relieve the pain from the blisters on my feet. "You?" "Glad you asked…" Oh boy… when they say that you just know your gonna be pummeled with a sleep inducing story. As he ranted off about the party he'd gone to and his girlfriend… I turned out the window and looked at the scene before me. The wind blew strongly across the courtyard, picking up leaves and twisting them in a snake like pattern.  
  
"Come on, we'd better get to class.", I said as Darren stopped his ranting. We headed inside and took our seats at the front of class…I actually preferred the back but Iori always complained that she couldn't see or hear the lecture. Damn, she drives me nuts sometimes. The fold-down seats creaked as I took my seat and pulled out my sketch pad. I opened it on the sketch I was drawing on Friday. It was a young girl with various cuts and bruises on her body, walking out of a forest… from the scene it appeared that she'd been lost there for days.  
  
I drew a few lines to better the image of the forest, making it seem more realistic and dark. Suddenly Iori's face appeared before me wearing a frown… her cute button face was framed by her blond, shoulder length hair …"Jake… you really should draw something nicer. That angel you drew me for my birthday was so beautiful…" "Hi…", I said with a twitch in my eye. "Oh, yeah hi." She quickly plopped down in the seat next to mine, taking out a notebook and writing the date at the top of the page…She's such a neat freak, always doing her best in everything…I guess in a way it was this that made me feel at home in her presence. It was like I was whirling around wildly in the winds and she was my support… that which I held onto. If it wasn't for her I'd probably have failed most of my subjects.  
  
The lecturer came in and started with class without much delay… while I half-heartedly listened and drew at the same time, Iori was hurriedly making notes. Time passed slowly and I kept glancing at my watch trying to make it speed up. The lines on my sketch pad blurred into a single image as boredom took over my mind. The lecturer's voice droned on in the background but I tuned it out… it wasn't like the class wasn't easy…all I had to do was download the study notes from the university website.   
  
Suddenly I felt somewhat different… the flickering light above me drew my attention and I could hear the buzz of electricity run through it. Then I heard the tapping of someone's pencil on their desk…it started slowing down and the sound deepened until it stopped altogether. I looked around in surprise. Everyone was stock still like someone had pressed the pause button and forgot to give me the remote. I waved my hand in front of Iori's face. She didn't even twitch…I looked down at what she'd been writing… she'd stopped in the middle of a word… I was getting pretty freaked out by this time but it was nothing compared to what happened next.   
  
I suddenly doubled over in pain as I felt something burning rake across my chest. The burning sensation of pain stayed there as I pulled myself upright again only to find my hands covered in my own blood. Slowly it dripped to the white paper on my desk and splattered over the young girls middle. I looked on in silent awe at the beautiful red color. Then there was something else… not physical pain but rather emotional… it felt like my dreams had been shattered and everything I'd cared for had died… by this time I'd already pulled myself out of my desk and was standing in front of the class.  
  
I let out an agonized scream that would have made your heart stop cold if you heard it. The agony only fed the anger I felt… anger towards one being…I opened my eyes and looked towards him… Saffron…The burning fires around me crackled as I stood… my eyes blazing. The beast smirked at me with confidence. "You may have saved your mate but you'll never defeat me." I didn't understand where I was or what I was doing… all I knew was I had to kill this winged creature… and I did. I reached out with my hand burning with power… Hiryou shoten ha revised! Horizontal blast!!… I cried as a force escaped me. Cold and hot at the same time…. The winds clashed as the creature suddenly froze in shock and from the ice that incased it… a second later he shattered into a million pieces.  
  
Suddenly my mind cleared and I looked at the scene in shock… I'd just killed someone….I just killed someone…. The thoughts kept running in my mind as I looked on with wide eyes. My heart cold and numb I stood and turned away from the scene…walking towards the woods and after the people who I knew had just left in that direction… Akane…everyone. I'd saved them but at the cost of something I'd held dear… my humanity. I'm nothing more than a monster now. The thoughts struck me as a bit strange as I realized where I'd seen this scene before…I'm Ranma… Somehow it didn't seem as shocking as it should have been… but I kept walking the world around me nothing but an unrecognizable blur… before I finally collapsed, unconscious. 


End file.
